Rob and Sam Fatzinger live in the Washington, D.C., area. They have 14 children, two of whom are adopted — nine boys and five girls — ranging in age from 9 to 35. Nearly a decade ago, the Fatzingers captured headlines when they revealed that they were living debt-free — despite their many children in college and the fact that they reside in one of the country’s most expensive metro areas. 

The Fatzingers published a book in 2021 with Ave Maria Press about their experience, entitled A Catholic Guide to Spending Less and Living More: Advice from a Debt-Free Family of 16. Now retired, the Fatzingers are helping to home-school their grandchildren. 

The Register spoke to Sam about her big Catholic family’s top tips for living a financially free life.

1. Get on the same page about finances early.

Sam and Rob had their first child early in their marriage and didn’t have a lot of time to figure out how they would manage their money as partners and as parents. But from the very beginning, knowing that money trouble is one of the most common stressors in a marriage, they resolved to try their best to avoid getting into debt. 

2. Live below your means. 

For the first decade or so of their marriage, the Fatzingers owned their own business — a Christian bookstore — and became accustomed to living a lifestyle that was below their means. Around 1999, Rob got a higher-paying job as a software tester. Rather than spending their new income, the family simply kept living the same way they were used to — “you would never have known anything switched in our lives,” Sam said. 

Their continued frugality, even with a higher income, allowed the family to pay off their house early, around 2012. 

3. Small, daily choices add up in the long run.

Getting to a place of financial freedom has taken sacrifice; the Fatzingers rarely eat out and have largely eschewed expensive vacations and household items. Sam recalled an amusing episode where a family friend gave her a hard time for buying her children an inexpensive, off-brand snack from a big-box store instead of the name brand. She simply responded that her children liked the off-brand snacks just fine and that if buying the off-brand helped them pay off their house sooner, it was worth it. 

4. Save, and save some more. 

Frugality in a family’s daily life can only go so far — sometimes unexpected expenses, like car repairs or hospital bills, are simply unavoidable. Sam and Rob learned early on to save every extra penny they made to cover those kinds of unexpected expenses without having to resort to credit cards or loans, which can easily spiral out of control. 

5. Avoid the burden of school debt. 

Rob and Sam both attended college, but entered their marriage with no student loans. They encouraged their children — all of whom they have home-schooled — to take advantage of community college, scholarships and work-study opportunities in order to ensure they get a good education while avoiding debt. 

Several of the Fatzinger children are married with children of their own, and a few have embraced lives as missionaries. Being debt-free helps each child to freely embrace his or her own vocation, Sam said. 

6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. 

Sam stressed that their family’s success has not been the result of her and Rob’s efforts alone; they had to learn how to be comfortable with asking for help. Countless loved ones and friends, and even numerous strangers, have offered their time, money, counsel or material goods to the family to help them on their journey, she said. 

Around the time they closed their bookstore, the Fatzingers moved close to family into a fixer-upper house that had been foreclosed on — “the worst house in the nicest neighborhood,” Sam joked. It took a lot of work, and a lot of assistance, but they found a way to make the home their own.

7. Pay it forward. 

The Fatzingers have always made room in their budget for some form of tithing, with the monetary amount changing with the seasons of their lives. In addition to their parish, the Fatzingers support the Catholic center at the University of Maryland, which many of their children have attended, and have also supported groups involved in addressing human trafficking. 

And of course, they’ve paid it forward by setting their children up with the skills to make their own good financial choices. 

8. Protect the freedom to say “Yes.”

Encouraging other families, Sam emphasized that the goal of paying off debt is “always worth it” for the freedom it brings a family to be able to be generous with their money and time, rather than worrying about debt hanging over them. It’s that freedom that allowed the family to say “Yes” when they were asked to foster a child in 2012 — at a time when they already had 12 children of their own. She said, “Because we lived within our means, there was never a question of whether we could afford another child. … We knew the Lord was going to provide for that.”